Cycle: 42km

We were up early and off before 7:40am! We'd stopped at Lake Tutira to rest before the biggest hill on this leg (Wairoa to Napier). The ascent was all in the shade and the air was cool. There were no really steep sections, just a consistent 340m climb, including a big corner known as the "Devil's Elbow". You could see where the road had melted the day before, so we were right to leave so early. The descent was the best yet. Lots of sweeping corners with basically no peddling for well over 6km - Brilliant!

The ride in to Napier wasn't very exciting and we got to our Top 10 Napier Campsite by 11am! The facilities were excellent and since we were pretty hot we poured water all over each other before having a cooling swim with all the kids!

I was getting a little nervous about a pending telephone job interview I had arranged for the evening, so for a little distraction we went to town. We whittled away a lovely couple of hours in a local cafe drinking some wine and eating some fantastic food - great to be in a good restaurant after the East Cape. Next was some waxing fun (for Claire, not me!)

I spent the early evening planning what I wanted to say and things went well when the call finally came in at 10:50pm. After 30-odd minutes "chatting" I was a bit too energised to sleep straight away!